


A New Critical Era

by Bettycrocker100piecebakingset



Series: BlackWatch Adventures [2]
Category: Islands (Band), Overwatch (Video Game), That Guy with the Glasses/Channel Awesome
Genre: Gen, M/M, Overwatch Recall, Post-Fall of Overwatch, The Critical Podcast, Yu-Gi-Oh Duels and Things, podcasts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2019-10-30 02:19:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17819930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bettycrocker100piecebakingset/pseuds/Bettycrocker100piecebakingset
Summary: Against McCree's better judgment, when he gets the fateful text from a scertain gorila Scientist, he decides to rejoin Overwatch. To hell with it! So now he's cowboying about on a new mission with his friends new and old to take down the terrorist known as the Reaper. Meanwhile, a podcast featuring his hero Nick Thorburn seems to gain omnipresence across the globe. The Critical Podcast has something to hide. Can McCree figure out the secret of this cursed podcast?





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

The trumpets played and the bright blue overwatch banners were plastered all over the walls. This ceremony really was the tits, huh? is what genji was thinking of saying to the rest of the blackwatch crew, but he held his tongue. John “Jack” Morrison was called to the stand (podium). He shuffled up there, then he did the macarena until Winston coughed so loudly all their ears rung. Reyes thought the whole situation was sillay!

“This whole situation is sillay,” Reyes commented. Everyone nodded in agreement.

For their hard work Blackwatch was rewarded with nothing physical, but the sentimental words of former president Lyndon B. Johnson, head preserved like in Futurama. That show is damn good. As images of Bender flashed in all the attendees’ minds, Commander Morrison tried to fill in as former President Johnson got over his clinical severed head anxiety. 

“Let me tell you about Lydon B. Johnson,” Morrison started, like he was about to teach them all American history.

Moira, who was dressed like she was at a funeral, rose her hand. “He’s dumb?”

“No!” SOldier could not believe she would say that when the man himself was about to congratulate her on aiding in the murder of a cult leader! “....Well yes.” He conceded after thinking about it for a little.

Then he got the word from Ana who was giving Johnson cognitive behavioral therapy in a speedrun of epic proportions that his head was about to be wheeled out to give his congratulations to all of Overwatch. “Um… here is the… president. Former president.” he sweated bullets and slipped a little on the massive sweat puddle as he moved from the podium to his seat in the pews. They were renting out a church for the celebration.

McCree watched in abject horror as Lyndon B. Johnson opted to do a poetic rendition of Gangnam Style in iambic pentameter. That song was _ancient_! As his eyes grew dry from the hypnotism, he was brought back to one of the many realities he coexisted in by Genji.

“I have Fritos,” Genji informed him. “Not here. In the car. It’s not my car. Have you heard of doppelgangers?”

“No,” the cowboy McCree’d. “Well, maybe. How is that related to Fritos?”

“Well, sometimes when you see them, they’ll vanish into thin air! Or, they’ll smile at you all funny. It’s so epic.”

McCree tried desperately to ignore him after that. He tried to focus again on the ceremony. After all, he was a big part of the reason they were having it. Even if that weren’t true, McCree would still be pretending it was! He’s just really nice like that.

He watched Johnson call his assistant to hold up a photo for him. “ _This_ is how we know that Overwatch is doing great things for our world.” And McCree nearly shat in shock.

It was an image, graphic and colorized, of the Walker’s decimated corpse. The only thing in tact - barely in tact - was the Critic’s hideous glasses. McCree could only stare so long before he needed to get out of there. Even though he was proud, he was glad, right? They had gotten rid of the Walker… But it didn’t feel right. None of this did. 

***

It’s been years since that faithful day when McCree took the fritos from the jeep and left without a trace. He couldn’t handle the guilt of killing the Walker, so he left without seeing his super special prize from the president. Somberly he drank another “Wacky smacky Drinky winky” as he listened to the annoying podcast “Critical” on the radio. McCree didn’t recognize the voices really, but one of them sounded strangely familiar, so he just made up silly names for them while he ordered another Wacky Smacky Drinky Winky.

He called the one who he thought was funniest Snurble and the other one was Poo. It was really funny. He kept changing the names too. The bartender chortled heartily at one of the long rambling spiels from Goober countered only by the awful wisdoms from Sparky.

“ _So I really think if you run Exodia in this day in age, you’re really just asking to lose_.” Goober explained. “ _Most of the decks these days are OTKs, which, for all you first time listeners out there are_ -”

“ _One Turn Kills_.” Sparky followed up.

“ _Yeah, One Turn Kills. Sorry, I know I said first time listeners out there but in reality no one has NOT heard our podcast. We’re the best ever! Hahahahah_!”

“ _Hahahaha!_ ”

“Man, they’re so unbiased,” the bartender commented. McCree ignored him because he didn’t like when people randomly tried to strike up conversation with him.

“Please, just another drink.” McCree tried to veer the conversation away from personal opinions while also getting something from the guy. This was just like scamming Morrison for grilled cheese sandwiches back in the old days, but he quickly swished away the memory. 

But the bartender didn’t move. Instead his face contorted into a wicked pained smile. “I said,” the bartender hissed. “MAN, they’re so unbiased! Right?”

This was getting a little weird. McCree put his hat over his face to ignore the guy and hoped he would stop looking at him. He figured it did, because eventually instead of a burning sensation aimed at his heart, he felt just the cool breeze from the fan blowing his sweaty hair around. Another awkward situation avoided! Hooray for McCree! Until his phone started to ring with a number that he hadn’t seen in ages. He almost thought it was another hilarious prank… because the image was gorila. Gingerly, he pressed the talk button and put his limited edition Mario phone up to his ear. “H-Hello?”

“McCree, it’s Winston.” Winston sounded nervous. “We need to call the team back together.”


	2. A new begining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into that greats beast!

McCree was now on a train to the old base, playing games on his phone like Angry birds 40 and Fortnite 2. And he was not happy about it.

Not long after McCree left, the whole Overwatch operation fell to shambles. No one was there to bring cowboyness to the team so it was doomed to fall apart. He had read and watched the fates of his old friends: Ana and Morrison were both dead, and although he mourned for a little while, he secretly hoped Angela would be dead too. But of course she was fine and all the television reports were on how she was working on new ways to kill god. Goo for her.

He really only mourned the death of Reyes. Seeing the decimation of the base hurt his heart so much because his dad - he meant Reyes- was just gone. His life was snuffed out so quickly and for no fucking reason. McCree could recall every night he spent out, drinking and hoping that maybe the reporters had got it all wrong, that they just haven’t _looked_ hard enough, but the truth remained the same. Reyes was not coming back.

McCree aimlessly fired another angry bird on his phone and got a hole in one. He got a hole in one! He got a hole in one! But the victory felt hollow as he reminisced on his past, and because the Level Failed screen showed anyway. Over the years he did hear from the remaining Blackwatch members; Genji was having wild robot sex god knows where and sent him a postcard nearly everyday, but McCree never bothered to respond, and Moira sent him one text message that said, “I’m taking your anti-ghost boots. Goodbye.” and that was that on that. 

He turned off his phone after he beat the same level a third time and still got the Level Failed screen. Now McCree sifted through the postcards from Genji. One was custom made, but it looked like a 5 year old had masterfully crafted it, before the cowboy remembered it was Genji’s handiwork. It was some kind of fucked up looking duck wearing a cowboy hat. The postcard said “Wish you were” like it was about to follow up with “here”, but instead it said “a duck” in Genji’s handwriting. 

McCree almost passed out as he realized Genji must’ve been called back to Overwatch too. Fuck.

Then he opened up the old bag of Fritos. He kept it around because it had Reyes’ name and the words “DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH” on it in sharpie in his - old - commander’s terrible blocky print. Then he felt goopy for looking at it so he stuffed it back in his bag. Why didn’t he pack anything he actually needed.

The robotic Winston who was manning the train called out through the speakers, “Uh, hahaha, we are now entering the um, Overwatch Base! Hahaha. Robowinston out.” Thus the cyberape somersaulted out the conductor window, and from the nethers of the train floor another identical Robowinston took its place.

The sight from the RoboWinston express was something to behold. The mountains encapsulating the watchpoint as it looked over the shimmering afternoon sea almost made him feel something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Like he was staring into the masterful universe of Anne Sexton’s _The Starry Night_ (1961). The base looked like shit though, and although he knew that the (as far as he knew) sole owner of the base Winston tried his best, it simply was not enough. He would have to put this on Winston’s report card.

Screeching to a halt, the RoboWinston train finally opened its doors to the base. “Uh. Haha. Thank you for riding with us. We um. Hope to see you again soon! Hahaha.” the RoboWinston chirped like a monkey, and then a timer started going down to the train’s inevitable explosion. McCree hauled ass as he attempted to escape the doomtrain with all of his artifacts. 

As he was scrambling to gather all the postcards and papers of angry birds fanart he had forgotten he drew, red lights started flashing and a booming robotic voice cackled. “ **This metro is going straight to Hell**!” McCree successfully booked it before anything more could happen. Although, he suddenly felt like he was back in Italy for a few moments.

In his mind’s eye he could see the frying pan hitting a waiter over the head so McCree could steal his clothes, the moment when Reyes shot Antonio and said “Oopsies.” and the Walker trying to convince him to stay. It hurt. But he was too deep in the shit to start having memories now. The little McCree in his brain closed the vault and the real McCree marched towards the door.

Of course, the combination to the door was “So basically, I’m a scientist” but that didn’t seem to be working. He tried it 50 billion times before someone smarter than him came up and punched in something else. Dare I say a new code. Dramatically he turned his head to see who geniusly tried the code that Winston sent in a text message to presumably all the people he was inviting back. 

“Holy shit,” McCree smiled. “It’s Fareeha!”

And lo and behold it was Fareeha Amari! The crowd cheered as she gestured for everyone to settle down but McCree didn’t stop going nuts. He was basically like her older brother! They played so many fun and hilarious games like “Who can put more whoopie cushions under Morrison’s chairs” and “Who can arm wrestle Reinhardt the longest” and “Who will become god before they become the king or queen of the prom”. He hadn’t seen her since he left!

“It’s Jesse!” She smiled fondly. “You look old and shitty now.”

“I am just a little,” He chuckled. “Why are you here?”

Fareeha stared at him a very long time. So long that the door she opened had decided to close due to inactivity. “Sorry, I was recalling something. I have to buy cereal later. Um, what did you ask?”

McCree laughed. “What do you mean? You’ve just been staring at me this whole time! Hahahahwhahw!”

Fareeha made a sillay and wacky face before reopening the door and walking inside. Mccree chortled so long the door closed again. He banged on it desperately. He wanted to see his little sister figure again!!! Before he could begin to lament because he remembered Fareeha had lost her mother, something terrible happened.

“Oh, hey, McCree!” Genji called from behind him. He was toting an omnic wearing ugly pants about with him. “This is my robohusband, Zenyabba. Zenyatta, sorry. Zenyabba is one of his astral forms.”

Genji just stood there after that. McCree forgot to say anything to him, instead realizing Genji was waiting for McCree to put in the doorcode since he was in front of them. He vaguely remembered what Fareeha had input to the system, but before he could start tapping away he completely forgot because something else terrible happened.

“Oh, I hope I’m not too late.” It was Angela whatever-her-last-name-was. McCree grimaced. It was like hell on earth. “Trouble with the door?”

Her long arms and fingers began typing in the code for him before McCree could do anything. It was like he was watching everything happen outside of the body. As soon as the stupid thing slid open he marched inside. The meeting room was another section of hell he didn’t imagine the metro could ever take him to, nor could the horrifying antics of his unfortunate fellow Overwatch members produce.

It had a huge monitor with a picture of Winston’s monkey gay dating app icon as the desktop background. Winston had so many applications on his computer, from folders named “yeti penis” to software for editing his Monkey pectorals to look more muscular, that McCree was about to just go “apge” or something. Unrelated to the monitor, there were little cupcakes stacked on a very beautiful plate with everyone’s faces on them. Some of them he didn’t recognize, but others made his heart filled with worms. He went to reach for the one lovingly crafted with his face, but Angela walked over and took it from his hands, and when he tried to take the one with her face, the aura from it knocked him back a few feet. McCree finally managed to swipe it from her by throwing a chew toy and yanking it from her as she went to vaporize it.

He took a seat next to Fareeha as the overlapping chatter from Zenyatta, Genji, and Angela tried to overwhelm him. Winston cleared his throat very loudly, then quietly, then loudly again, and didn’t seem to notice new arrivals. McCree got the feeling Winston had been doing that several hours straight.

When the hell would the meeting start?

Fareeha nudged him. “Take the snack for you.” He noticed the snack on the table with his face on it. Smiling fondly at such a development, McCree reached over and took it. It was a delightful bag of Shrimp Chips! They had just taped a photo of him over it. He tried to share with Fareeha who immediately refused. 

“He’ll notice,” she whispered, gesturing to Winston who had cleared his voice in thirty unique octaves within that timeframe.

McCree began to wonder why the hell he was even doing this, in the first place. Angela had been enjoying her personally made tiramisu. Wait, personally made? It had her face on the sides of the tray! McCree quickly scanned the table and noticed that there was a snack for him too! With his face on it. As he reached for it, Fareeha gently pushed his hands away. 

“You have to wait. Angela is having hers now because she can’t necessarily be... controlled, per se.” 

Then the door whirred open again, and a voice McCree had never heard greeted them! “Hey games… gamers, I meant gamers.”

Fareeha looked overjoyed. “Hana Song?!”

Another entrance!

“And Lucio?” He gave a little half wave as Fareeha jumped out of her seat to reveal her T-shirt she bought when they toured music and streaming together that one time.

They gave Fareeha autographs on her knees and ankles quickly. Mccree had never seen nor heard of htese people before in his whole life. He watched in awe as everyone else did though.

Angela opened up her poetry book she’d been working on all 37 years of her life and read out her “Ode to Gaming” to Hana whose lazer eyes ripped it to shreds. Then they both shared a good laugh. Even Lucio found it funny!

Lucio used his telepathy to remove the unnecessary files on Winston’s computer, much to McCree’s delight, as the “yeti penis” folder disappeared! “Whoa! How’d you do that!”

“I have god powers,” Lucio explained. 

Epic… McCree thought. Maybe Overwatch wouldn’t be so bad after all!

Then McCree noticed cake pops set up on the table, each with everyone’s faces on it. He saw his own, Angela’s, Fareeha’s, Lena’s, Reinhardt’s, Hana’s, Lucio’s, uh probably some other people. The cowboy excitedly took his own cake pop from the stand. This action implored the rest of his new pals to take their own as well! His impact.

After the 365th throat clearing, Winston began the meeting.

“Is everyone here?” Winston looked around the room. “We, uh, don’t have a lot of time…”

Winston reviewed something at his desk and sighed. “Well, not everyone’s here yet, since I still see some specially designated Rice Krispie treats are still out…”

McCree quickly grabbed the Rice Krispie with his name and face taped to it so Winston would know he was present. Still a few left: Torbjorn, Lena, Reinhardt… Fareeha prevented McCree from opening it, though.

“While we’re all here I’ll tell you guys about the computers I’ve engineered for you all as well. Just for fun. You can access the deep web with them uh, hahaha, if that’s anyone’s cup of tea.” Winston looked uncomfortable. “It does other stuff too, it jst took a really long time to do that part so I thought I’d mention it.”

Fareeha showed McCree the special computer was located under his desk, sort of like in Oprah. He navigated the deep web out of curiosity, and tried to think up something to look up while Winston filled the room with awkward banter. What was that thing Genji had told him about…? He studied Genji from across the table to see if it would ring any bells, but Genji was like a full cyborg now and it screwed with him. Doppelgangers, he suddenly remembered, repressing the rest of _that_ day.

So, instead of hearing the reason he was gathered here today in this organization that experienced so much wild shit, he quickly found a few pages formatted like he was on fucking Geocities discussing doppelgangers. 

As he skimmed, he paid attention to things Winston would say like “Okay, everyone’s here, so let’s talk about the mission,” which he actually ignored because he had also ignored the door opening and the big celebrations that occurred from everyone reuniting or meeting new people. However, McCree did look up to take the bag of fruit gummies which he had been assigned by virtue of it bearing his face and name. He always thought the red ones tasted best.

Of the things Mccree learned about doppelgangers through his search, he found it pretty hair-raising that they looked completely identical to the person they were impersonating. The only distinguishment McCree had noticed from his research was that they would give an uncharacteristic, toothy smile. He had to ask, what if that person already had a disturbing smile when they smiled with their teeth? That was absolutely rude to call it scary, or akin to a doppelganger! What if they just smiled like that! Now stewing in his anger, he took a bit to react when Fareeha tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hrm?” he hrm’d.

“The meeting is over. I don’t know if you were even paying attention.” Fareeha smiled. McCree could only smile back as she continued. “Just like old times, eh? If you have any questions, they’ll go over it again I think. Also, be sure to get your snack on the way out.”

McCree finally noticed a plethora of giant chocolate chip muffin wrappers and one last one meant for him. It had one of those little plastic things you stick into cupcakes stuck into it with an image of his face. McCree concluded as he snatched the muffin up that his face was never meant to be immortalized in plastic.

“So…” McCree tried to play it casual that he was not paying attention at all. “What happened during the meeting?”

Fareeha absentmindedly crushed her muffin into a little shape. “I don’t know if you noticed, Jesse, but the world is kind of going to shit and all that. Our first mission back together is to locate several renegades that have been hunting and killing Overwatch members. Not too long ago, Winston himself was almost killed.” McCree didn’t even know that Winston could die. “We have to find this guy who calls himself the ‘Reaper’ as well as his potential cohorts and ice those clowns. We’ve got a week before a team is selected though. How the hell did you zone out during that whole meeting?”

He shrugged and took the shape that Fareeha made with her face-muffin. The doppelganger thing really stuck with him for some reason. Like it was some form of foreshadowing for the next crazy events that would occur in his life. “I see.” He didn’t really see. “Did they do anything else during the meeting?”

“Winston played that awful podcast for everyone to remind us all that we’re here to save guys like them. It was terrible and I think a bad message. Why would we want to save losers like them?” She frowned. 

“So, Winston can die?” McCree implored. “I mean, what’s wrong with Snurble and Poo?” He still thought they were kinda funny, despite the bartender scaring the shit out of him immediately after.

“Jesse…” Fareeha looked at him with concerned eyes. The rest of her face was sillaaayyy!!! “Nick Thorburn is on the ‘Critical’ podcast.”

“WHAT!” McCree was shocked! The two of them were walking through the labyrinthine dormitory hallways to randomly select one to stay in. “And you called him a _**loser**_?” 

“More like, you didn’t notice it was him?” Fareeha chose a door for them to enter at random. “Isn’t he your hero?”

“He’s my dad,” McCree murmured. “Well, my second dad.”

Fareeha looked at him, and he thought she was about to bring Reyes up, braced himself, but she just pointed to his muffin. “Are you gonna eat that?”

Despite all his rage, he was just a cowboy with three hats on at once. “Argh!!! Yes...”

The door Fareeha had picked was completely empty except for a feather. “Shit!”

McCree guffawed. “Guess we’re going in the room with one bed! You get to sleep on the floor.”


End file.
